The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Maybe. What about you?’
Harry hunched his shoulders. ‘Goes without saying.’
Katrine sipped her drink, a shiny number. Vodka shiny, not gin grey, he established.
‘And what’s your unhappiness down to, Harry?’
The words came out before he had time to think. ‘Loving someone who loves me.’
Katrine laughed. ‘Poor thing. Did you have a harmonious start to life and a cheery disposition
which was later destroyed? Or was your path marked out for you?’
Harry stared at the golden-brown liquid in his glass. ‘Sometimes I wonder. But not often. I try to
think about other things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Other things.’
‘Do you sometimes think about me?’
Someone bumped into her and she stepped closer. Her perfume intermingled with the aroma of Jim
Beam.
‘Never,’ he said, grabbing his glass and knocking back the contents. He stared ahead, into the
mirror behind the bottles where he saw Katrine Bratt and Harry Hole standing much too close to
each other. She leaned forward.
‘Harry, you’re lying.’
He turned to her. Her eyes seemed to be smouldering, yellow and blurred, like the fog lights on an
approaching car. Her nostrils were flared, and she was breathing hard. There was a smell, as if she
took lime in her vodka.
‘Tell me exactly, in detail, what you feel like doing now, Harry.’ There was gravel in her voice.
‘Everything. And don’t lie this time.’
His mind went back to the rumour Espen Lepsvik had mentioned, about Katrine Bratt and her
husband’s predilections. Bullshit, his mind didn’t go back, it had been too far forward in his
cerebral cortex the whole time. He breathed in. ‘OK, Katrine. I’m a simple man with simple needs.’
She had tipped back her head, as some animal species do to show submission. He raised his glass. ‘I
feel like drinking.’
Katrine was sent staggering towards Harry when a colleague unsteady on his legs knocked her from
behind. Harry broke her fall by grasping her left side with his free hand. Her face screwed up with
pain.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘An injury?’